<p>How much money does a high school guidance counselor make working in a public big city school?</p>
<p>I found this:</p>
<p>PayScale</a> - Salary Survey, Salaries, Wages, Compensation Information and Analysis</p>
<p>I'd imagine "public big-city schools" would be on the low end of the range here.</p>
<p>It's kinda sad. While searching, I came across Virginia's education department website that had a description of what high school counselors do each day. This apparently included controlling misbehaving students, warning students about the dangers of drugs during personal meetings and giving career aptitude tests to students. Yes, this is high school. GC's should be limited to college counseling only. Period.</p>
<p>According to my school's approved budget, $81k on average. The head of guidance makes $112k. My school's not big city public, but affluent suburban public magnet with 99%+ of graduates going to college (and thus needing some college counseling).</p>
<p>Wow! I'd always thought that the Big city public school counselors would make more than private school counselors because of the tax base......boy was I wrong! That's really interesting though......if I may ask...where are you from, chronicidal?</p>
<p>DVM -- From what I have observed at my daughter's high school the guidance staff spends upwards of 40% of their time on scheduling issues, and another 40% of their time counseling kids who have discipline issues or family situations that are impacting their classroom performance. They also organize and deliver semester-long "seminars" for each class on health and drug related issues, and prepare mountains of reports for the NYS Ed Department. If they spend more than 15% of their time on college admissions counseling I'd be surprised.</p>
<p>Exactly. This is why so many students aren't getting what they need. There needs to be someone else who's job it is to do what you just described. The role of guidance counselors in getting students into college has changed over the years and now we need to change the job description to reflect that.</p>
<p>woah i thought they made like 20, 25k tops</p>
<p><-------- location.</p>
<p>So the figure I gave ($81k) assumes that all the money allocated on the line for guidance counselors goes to salary. Maybe some of that is taken out for random expenses.</p>
<p>In many districts, counselors are part of the teachers collective bargaining unit and will make a salary that is commensertate with their education and years of experience, just like teachers. In most states, a master's degree is required in order to be a guidance counselor. Counselors are trained to help students in 3 main areas - academic, personal/ social, and careers. Most school districts hire GCs expecting them to deal with all three areas, not just college counseling.</p>
<p>Thanks Shennie</p>
<p>In NYC it is a salary step system (based on education and experience) when people are paid according to the union contract. the base salary for a new GC just coming out of school is 48,000 and currently tops out at ~100,000 for someone who has 20 years in the system and 30 credits above their masters degree (School Counseling is a 60 credit masters degree). They are also paid a per session (overtime rate) of $42/hr along with longevity increases at 5, 10 & 15 years. </p>
<p>Under the current contract teachers and GC received a 2% raise in October and will recieve a 5% raise in May 2008 (with the per session rate going up to $45/hr).</p>
<p>The college counseling piece is only a very small part of what a GC does . In some schools, there is a dedicated College counselor and there are also grade advisiors that deal with the programming piece and the couselor only deals with "counseling and guidance issues."</p>
<p>In other schools the GC deals with everything from soup to nuts (which is the main crux of the job); from being part of the selection process for incoming freshmen, programming everyone from freshmen to super seniors, transcript updates, grade changes, program changes, counseling, college, attendance, contacting ASC (childrens sercves) running groups, safety transfers, leading advisories, registering new students, referrals, family issues, peer leadership, conflict mediation, etc. and all of the paperwork that goes with it(and in big city systems everthing has to be documented) in addition to college counseling.</p>
<p>I am a middle school counselor in Wisconsin. All the counselors in our district are on the salary lanes regardless of school. I have an MS in Counseling, plus an additional 35 credits, 14 years of experience, and I make less than $50,000.</p>
<p>Hi Shennie,</p>
<p>Here is the current GC Salary grid for NYC.</p>
<p>GCs are paid on an annual basis although they work 10 months a year (they receive summer checks on the last day of school in june for july and august pay dates). Should they work over the summer, they are paid per session in addition to their regular paycheck.</p>
<p>Sybbie719.....what is 10 year long, 13 year long, 15 year long,....? And what is 1A, 1B,.....? (on the website)</p>
<p>1A- is a person coming into the profession straight out of grad school (less than 6 months of service (you gain a "step' moving from A to B each 6 months). </p>
<p>1B is a person with 6 months experience on the job</p>
<p>2A is starting their 2nd year in the job.</p>
<p>The base salary VIH is for just coming into the profession with a masters in school counseling. THe second column is for getting an additional 30 credits after you complete your masters in school counseling. </p>
<p>When you are hired in NYS, you are given a provisional license which is good for 5 years. In NYC you gain tenure after working 4 years. You must have 3 years of paid full time experience in order to get your permanent certification </p>
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10 year long, 13 year long, 15 year long
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<p>This simply means that amount of years you have been working. You can also get credit for life experience (up to 6 years) which will increase your pay, longevity, and will be pensionable when it is time for you to retire.</p>